This just in... there's a movie clip that's sweeping the Web about the drowning of teenage girls.

First, it is all reminiscent of the drowning "Ophelia" from Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The story briefly: She's in love with him; but as the young prince becomes more emotionally distraught, he becomes abusive and cold. Sadly, the emotionally frail Ophelia cannot cope. On top of an insecure adolescent identity and low-self esteem, Ophelia lives to please men who only in turn ignore and/or abuse her. The last straw: Hamlet both rejects and cruelly humiliates her after they've been sexually intimate. Unable to cope, Ophelia ultimately falls into a dissociative state and wanders to a river where ultimately she drowns.

That drowning is actually a powerful metaphor for marketing today. As the 1995 bestseller Reviving Ophelia made clear: "Today's teenage girls are coming of age in 'a girl-poisoning culture.' Young women continue to be victims of abuse, self-mutilation (e.g., anorexia), consumerism and media pressure to conform to others' ideals."

What follows is exactly those themes made into a chilling one minute Web movie. Titled "Onslaught," it's a video PR piece that illustrates what young girls see in the deluge of advertising that surrounds them.

Excuse me but it's Dove who've drown Ophelia! And then the topper... in the last few frames they tell viewers to "Talk to your daughter before the Beauty Industry does." All brought to you by, "The Dove Self-Esteem Fund".

CHRIST!! Have they no shame! It's beyond cynical. It's like the drug dealer opening a "rehab center." It's like a cigarette company with an anti-smoking campaign. It's like a priest begging to babysit your kids. How gullible do they think we are? Well, how gullible are you?

Ya know, with all the fervor that surrounds video blogging today, especially among the juniors in the business... we thought we'd take a moment to remind our brethren of PR's rich tradition in using video to communicate directly with consumers. Here's just one sample from the archives:

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